Saturday, January 17, 2015

Tofu and Politics

Even the best Parliament can be like a tofu factory, it's rotten. Imagine the tofu factory : in the kitchen, soybean piles trampled with bare feet (who knows if it's trampled by the feet mangy?), trampled in order to be pulverized, then mixed with water which are becoming more like mucus. Not surprisingly, the word "tofu" is derived from the Chinese language, and the word "fu" means "rotten". But from the foul-smelling factory born hundreds of cubes which later became tofu, and people enjoy it.

Even the best Parliament can be like a tofu factory. It is the birthplace of various laws, and every law is basically a statement of hope that life can be made better. Look at the laws governing the environmental care or the labor protection laws. Law is a constructive tool. But how it is processed until it's born is a matter that is not always compatible with the taste of prophet's sanctity.

A friend whispered to me, "If on one day you come from the clean library with its lights bright, and you enter into a parliament building to witness how the legislation produced, you'll be fed up."

You will see that for a bill, lawmakers are not only arguing, but they are also elbowing or stroking each other. Parties who are yelling at each other, will become sycophants when needed. The politicians relentlessly in bargaining position, with face pretending sweet or pretending fierce before a bill is passed.

Even the best Parliament can be like a combination of tofu and theater. The process of working there, such as the process of making tofu, do not be in a sterile tube. Nothing is 100 percent finished. All evolved from round to round, through dialogue and mask game. The proposal to give birth to the rule of law -- no matter how unfair the rules -- can't be dictated.

In a democratic parliament, no case can be decided unilaterally. Compromise always happens. I give X to you, you give me Y. Of course there are common sense and a sense of justice who work there, but there are also a lot of interest, and they are not always noble.

Some say -- when they see the parliament is the same as tofu factory -- that "politics is dirty". However, a note should be added here. Some say "politics is dirty" with disgust to the process of democracy, because democracy -- indeed -- can be a bit like buying and selling, and buying and selling is the work of merchant caste in the market, not the aristocratic caste.

The politicians are elected by the people, and therefore they must be smart to market themselves to gain the support, including they also must be able to talk nonsense when their voters want to hear their crap, right? So, It's not surprisingly, when the saints took power -- such as Calvin in Geneva in the 16th century or the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran in the 20th century, they rejected democracy.

Democracy is the bidding process. "Bargain" in the sense disappearance of something 100 percent viscous, and "bargaining" in the sense of expressing other possibilities.

Therefore, Machiavelli -- who said that in public areas people "had to learn how to not be good" -- can be considered as democratic political thinker. He pronounced it, perhaps with a bit of scorn and provocation, when what is considered "good" had been distorted by the Church. Perverted into something absolute. In fact, for him, the absolute was not included in the lives of people crowded in the world. Machiavelli did not believe in political move by faith, which gave birth to the war ideology or rigid "inner political". He saw, -- with realism sharp eye -- that in the world of people crowded, the pure holy never happened.

Where things are considered "good"? Do we need the value? We, who shifted a little to get out of a violent period, and lies, would shout, "We need it! We need it! "And indeed, it is necessary.

But every hunger blurs the line between needs and virtual, which, as mentioned in a poem, "The shadow of the coming dawn ...". The virtual moving between light and dark, between the dark and hope, easily becomes an obsession. And our obsession now is to look at the political process as a process of purification, even a purity process.

But the virtual can be misleading. If we need "something good", then "something good" is certainly a natural part of our world. Reasonable means proceeding from the assumption that it can be touched by the bidding process. Therefore, when the "good" can't be considered fresh and negotiable, then it becomes violent.

For me, a rotten smell parliament as well as tofu factory is better than the kind of violence. Yet tofu factory finally delivers something cheap, tasty, and without cholesterol, as parliament gives birth the definite legislation but does not clog the human life.
***

CZ

"Thank you for your perception! I like your romantic side, even if I do not always comment and I'm glad that you're in my circle of friends."(Courtesies by: Wolfgang A. Gerhardt)

Wolfgang A.Gerhardt : May be you like this Sunday collage

Cisca Zarmansyah : Before today, there never was a person doing this to me. You create a simple matter to look special. This is a special thing for me.

Cisca Zarmansyah : Thank you. I love it. I love you, my friend. ♥

CieL- FreYa Ceastle : Hmm, he's so nice...

"I am me.
In all the world,
there is no one else exactly like me.
Everything that comes out of me
is authentically mine,
because I alone chose it --
I own everything about me:
my body,
my feelings,
my mouth,
my voice,
all my actions,
whether they be to others or myself.
I own my fantasies,
my dreams,
my hopes,
my fears.
I own my triumphs and successes,
all my failures and mistakes.
Because I own all of me,
I can become intimately acquainted with me.
By so doing,
I can love me
and be friendly with all my parts.
I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me,
and other aspects that I do not know
-- but as long as I am friendly
and loving to myself,
I can courageously and hopefully
look for solutions
to the puzzles and ways
to find out more about me.
However I look and sound,
whatever I say and do,
and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time
is authentically me.
If later some parts of how I looked,
sounded,
thought,
and felt
turn out to be unfitting,
I can discard that which is unfitting,
keep the rest,
and invent something new
for that which I discarded.
I can see,
hear,
feel,
think,
say, and do.
I have the tools to survive,
to be close to others,
to be productive,
and to make sense
and order out of the world of people
and things outside of me.
I own me,
and therefore,
I can engineer me.
I am me,
and I am okay."

VIRGINIA SATIR
(American Phychologist and Educator, 1916-1988)

About Me

"When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent. I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent. I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out. I was not a trade unionist. When they came for the Jews, I remained silent. I wasn't a Jew. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out." - Martin Niemöller